Time for our second break away this year and our annual visit to the Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog), which we always try to fit in in early Spring/before Easter time. The weather running up to this had been mixed, but we had at least had the odd dry day for across the month of March, so how would the weather fair for our visit. Well the answer is astonishing, 5 days of blazing sun, hazy views admittedly but absolutely no complaints from us. 4 walks in t-shirts should tell you all you need to know about this superbly timed visit. We’d managed to pick up a holiday cottage towards the western side of the National Park, and a new area for us, which meant we could pick off some mountains and places that we’d had on our list for a while. First up is the 4 Waterfalls walk, a twisty path with steep steps up and down to the waterfalls as we followed the Rivers Hepste and Mellte to each of the cascades. First though was the drive up, which was fairly uneventful and then the challenge to find a parking spot, the two chargeable places are to the north of the waterfalls, but we’d spotted a free spot to the west and turned up to find it full, but 200 metres further up was a little shop, diesel petrol station and a layby opposite them, which clearly had our name on it. We quickly got set and headed off along the well marked paths, passing the youth hostel and café to the first waterfall, where we decided that we were hungry so ate our lunch enjoying the views down to the tumbling water. Having had a bit of a scramble down to take some photos of the waterfall, we headed off upstream to cross the river by the bridge and return to look to the waterfall from the other side. Its at this point that you see the original paths have been closed (I guess to erosion) and the route has been moved uphill to follow a wider main path, which takes you to the steps down to the third waterfall, before following the path along the bottom to the second waterfall. Returning to the 3rd one again to find it full of the Instagrammers desperate to get the best pose and photo, we didn’t linger too long but instead headed off to the final and best of the 4 waterfalls, a curtain of water which you can head behind and enjoy a shower!! All in all its a great walk and one I would recommend for a nice midweek day, as I can imagine it being very busy at weekends and the steps and narrow parts could get annoying if there are lots of folk all trying to get their pictures. For us it was the start of a superb break away

Start – Clyn-gwyn

Route – Sgwd Clun-gwyn – Sgwd Isaf Clun-gwyn – Sgwd y Pannwr – Sgwd yr Elra – Sgwd Clun-gwyn – Clun-gwyn

Distance – 4.5 miles   Start time – Midday  Time taken – 3hrs 30mins  Highest Point – At the start 264 metres

Weather – Sunny and warm